The French Report

Indeed, in a long-awaited official report on the Yogi sinking put together by the French flag state’s marine accident investigatory body, Bureau d’Enquêtes sur les Évènements de Mer, authorities laud Yogi’s crew for handling the ordeal “with cold blood” (as my English version reads in translation) and praise the fact that they’d indulged in no “unnecessary risk-taking.” Moreover, a crewmember who’s since found a berth on another Med-based yacht recently told Power & Motoryacht (on condition that he remain anonymous) that most of his Yogi shipmates are now working at new jobs in the charter industry, many of them on yachts in Florida. “I can tell you that when we left the [Strait of] Dardanelles on that evening,” he explains, “the yacht and all her crew were in extremely perfect condition. And we did everything we had to do. My honor is very correct now. Otherwise I don’t speak of this anymore.”

The French report is very French. In general, it examines the vicissitudes of a French-flagged, French-crewed, French-owned vessel. But the report is very problematic as well. Not only does it fail to address the prolonged nature of Yogi’s sinking in any way whatsoever, it fails to consider another very important issue. Why did it take almost an entire year for an investigation to be officially conducted and reported, given that Yogi was essentially a passenger vessel (albeit a very high-end one), presumably serving an elite cadre of charter clients around the world who are presumably as committed to safety on the high seas as any other group of human beings?